On this page, we go over several of the most frequently asked questions regarding
Mistweaver Monk in World of Warcraft — Battle for Azeroth Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5.
This will be updated as more common repeated questions surface over the course
of the expansion.

1. If I am Tank Healing, Does That Mean I Do Not Raid Heal?

Regardless of what talent build you choose to play, the bread and butter of
Mistweaver healing is still Essence Font. It is one of our most
powerful and efficient spells, and neglecting it will result in a huge loss
of throughput.

2. Is Fistweaving viable?

Yes, but it is much more fight-dependent than playing with
Upwelling. Fistweaving requires good uptime on the boss, and
requires that the entire raid take damage pretty regularly. On top of that, it
is more difficult to play than Upwelling, making it an even less attractive
option for progression raiding. However, if the fight/raid composition allows
for it, then Fistweaving is rewarding method of play that can help reduce the
threat of the enrage timer by a significant margin.

As for Dungeons, Fistweaving does not work at all. Rising Mist on
a per target basis does incredibly small amounts of healing. The only reason it
is good in a raid is it is hitting 15-20 people for only 1.5% of your Mana bar.
It is a tool for efficiency, which does not matter in dungeons since you can
drink between pulls.

3. How much should I play into Lifecycles?

You should not worry too much about following Lifecycles. Of
course taking the Mana reduction where you can get it is nice, but you also
need to keep in mind the efficiency of the spells in question.
Enveloping Mist has much of its power budget locked into its bonus
healing buff. As such, on its own it is easily our least efficient heal. In
order to get value out of it, it requires follow-up sources of healing to take
advantage of the 30-40% buff it applies.

What this means is that you should avoid simply cycling back and forth
between the two spells if you have no intention of getting value out of the
bonus healing buff.

4. How much Haste should Mistweaver Monk use and do they have stat caps?

Generally, stat caps are not a real concern any more, as most of the mechanics
that would lead to capping have been removed. Rather, stats simply gain or lose
value based on their relation to each other. For example, imagine you have 5000
Intellect, and the choice between two hypothetical trinkets: one gives 10%
Critical Strike, the other gives 750 Intellect. On average, the Crit trinket would
increase your throughput by 10%, whereas the Intellect trinket would increase it
by 15%; however, after a few weeks pass, you will gain better gear and now you
have 8000 Intellect (excluding the trinket). Now, that same 750 Intellect trinket
only provides a ~9.3% throughput increase, as opposed to the 10% of the Crit
trinket.

Haste, specifically, is somewhat different. Haste increases cast speed, as
well as the rate at which HoT and DoT spells tick. There used to be break points
for HoTs, in which it would tick quickly enough to gain an additional tick.
Thankfully, Blizzard deemed this to be a pretty negative gearing experience,
because any haste rating that you had that did not reach a break point was
essentially wasted stats. Instead, now all HoTs and DoTs gain an additional tick
at the end which is equal to the amount that would have been healed in the time
remaining. So, if Renewing Mist falls off when it was 50% of the way to
the next tick, then it will heal one last time for 50% of the normal amount.

Finally, as for casting breakpoints, there technically are still some
breakpoints you could reach, such as fitting extra casts inside of
Mana Tea, or Enveloping Mist windows. However, the gain that
these niche situations would net you is often less than what you would lose for
gaining other stats.

5. Which race is best for Mistweaver Monk?

Right off the bat, the difference between the very best and worse race is
roughly 1%, so you do not need to feel compelled to play an "optimal" race.

Currently, Pandaren are the strongest race, due to them gaining a double food buff.
However, this is tremendously punishing if you die, and it only about 1% stronger
than the next 6 races. To be clear, Pandaren is about 1% stronger than having no
racial at all, where as the next 6 races are about 0.99% stronger than having no
racial.

Ultimately, the best option when choosing a race (outside of personal preference
or aesthetic choices) would be to pick the best racial utility. For example,
Night Elves and Blood Elves are both very strong in Mythic+ Dungeons, the
former being able to skip trash packs with Shadowmeld and the latter
being able to purge enemy buffs with Arcane Torrent.

6. How good is Mistweaver Monk in Patch 8.1?

Mistweaver is still a tremendously strong spec in Patch 8.1. We received a small
nerf to Enveloping Mist, however we are still head and shoulders above
every other healing spec in the game when it comes to single target healing.
Everything else about the spec was kept the same, or buffed, so, overall, things
are looking good.

7. Changelog

17 Dec. 2018: Added race, stat, and Patch 8.1 viability sections.

10 Dec. 2018: This page has been reviewed for Patch 8.1 and no changes are necessary.